InFlight Traveller Magazine recently published a list of 18 top backpacking places in the Philippines. And to gather those, they picked three well-travelled individuals from the industry; travel blogging pioneer Ferdz Decena, Gameplan’s Julian Rodriguez, and unbelievably, yours truly.

That left me with a quandary though, being the last to be interviewed; those two already got the good places! So with bottles of Red Horse Beer (really sorry for spilling some on your laptop, Mons) tacos and barbecues at El Chupacabra in Makati, I wracked my brains to come up with backpacking places that haven’t been mentioned yet.

MY TAKE ON BACKPACKING IN THE PHILIPPINES

With alcohol powering my brain, I came up with three; Romblon, Marinduque and Babuyan Islands. A good enough combination of beach hops, heritage tours and roughing it out in the middle of nowhere. Try as I might to think of a few more places (Quirino Province and Antique now quickly comes to mind), my alcohol-addled brain wasn’t able to spew more.

InFlight Traveller Magazine is available at leading bookstores nationwide.